1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a remote operation system that uses a remote controller to remotely operate a television set or a similar appliance, and a remote controller for use in such a remote operation system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today, various appliances from AV equipment such as television sets and digital versatile disc (DVD) players to air conditioners and lighting fixtures can be operated remotely by a remote controller. Infrared communication is generally used for communication between a remote controller and a household appliance operated by the remote controller.
Remote controllers that use infrared communication can be implemented at low cost but are marked by slow transmission rate. For that reason, it is common to limit the use of an infrared remote controller to the transmission of simple instructions such as “power on/off” and “start play” to an appliance.
Usually, only one type of appliance can be operated by one remote controller. Some remote controllers, however, have operation buttons for a television set and operation buttons for a DVD player, and can operate the television set and the DVD player.
Remote controllers that use, instead of infrared communication, high-transmission rate wireless communication such as wireless local area network (LAN) and Bluetooth (trademark) are lately being put into practice. This type is not limited to a dedicated remote controller and can be a general-purpose terminal such as a smartphone used as a remote controller. For example, Non-patent Document No. 1 (Beetle, [online], [retrieved on Mar. 9, 2011], Internet <URL: http://www.bee-u.com/app/beetle>) discloses a technology in which a dedicated application is installed in a smartphone to operate a recorder.
With those technologies, a user can use a general-purpose terminal as a remote controller capable of operating a plurality of appliances by switching applications for appliances to be operated.
Patent Document No. 1 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-199475) discloses a technology for downloading remote operation data from a television set or a similar appliance by wireless communication such as Bluetooth. Bluetooth is non-directional wireless communication, which allows an appliance and a remote controller to hold wireless communication irrespective of their directions. If remote operation data is downloaded and an operating application is installed in a remote controller in advance, a user only needs to select an appliance to be operated on a screen of the remote controller in order to use this remote controller as a remote controller capable of operating the appliance chosen by the user.